


Mad Scientist (the nuts and bolts remix)

by ltgmars



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Memory Loss, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltgmars/pseuds/ltgmars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiba lives for experiments. Aiba <i>is</i> an experiment. (The AU in which Aiba is a robot.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad Scientist (the nuts and bolts remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Aiba was a force of chaos, and everyone knew that](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/17411) by doctoggy. 



> Written for [](http://jentfic-remix.livejournal.com/profile)[**jentfic_remix**](http://jentfic-remix.livejournal.com/) Cycle 9, originally posted [here](http://jentfic-remix.livejournal.com/95927.html). I took a crackfic and turned it into a different kind of crackfic. [aeslis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aeslis/pseuds/aeslis), you are my rock.

The roller skates are a good idea, Aiba thinks. And while in the human history of "good ideas", not all experiments originally deemed "good ideas" end with good results, Aiba is confident. He's lived a life full of experiments, after all, and he's made it this far without dying. Of course, dying is a different matter for him than it is for his groupmates, but he always shares his good ideas with the others, and dying is never part of the equation. That's why he knows it will always work out; he was built to make accurate calculations.

Ohno toes his way across the stage during their first skate-laden concert rehearsal, heel-toe heel-toe, dancing seven steps from the choreography of a song Aiba can't place at the moment. Aiba's position sprawled messily across Ohno's legs thirty-six seconds later is unexpected but not uncomfortable, and he calls out what he's been able to confirm with his new findings, shouting loudly enough to overpower the pained and by now familiar whimpering of post-experiment Sakurai Sho two meters behind him. "Leader is soft and squishy!"

.

Unlike members of the human race, Aiba retains a detailed and accurate memory of Phase 1: Birth. His life officially started as soon as his switch was flipped, memory chip intact and timer counting up the milliseconds since his activation. Welcome to the world, on this, the fifty-seventh year of reign of the Showa Emperor, twelfth month, twenty-fourth day.

"It's also referred to as 1982," Aiba's mother figure continued. The timer within Aiba's chrome chest registered the alternate designation. Aiba's mother figure brushed her fingers across his cheeks in a gesture that could be characterized as gentle or threatening; Aiba's mainframe was designed to distinguish between nuanced behavior, but it was based on continued tactile experience, and one isolated incident was not enough to establish a pattern.

"Understood," Aiba responded mechanically, voice pinched around the small vocal cords located in his throat.

"Now, Masaki, babies don't use full words," Aiba's father figure chided. "Check your database. We learned from our own experiences, but you have to refer to the knowledge we've given you. See what it says about babies and act accordingly."

Aiba's database indicated that he, at one minute, thirteen seconds, two hundred sixty-six milliseconds, fell under the vaguely defined category of "baby; infant". He booted up the list of generally accepted actions that a baby might naturally perform, and came upon an illustrative example true of many babies around his age. Upon independent activation, for example, it seemed that a large percentage of babies experience high levels of distress.

Aiba turned his attention to his father figure, calm eyes meeting across seven hundred eight-two thousandths of a meter, and began crying as hard as his body would allow.

.

"He grows in spurts, doesn't he?" a neighbor had commented once, a chuckle seeping into the fifteen wrinkled lines set around her eyes. Technically, she was incorrect. Aiba didn't grow during Phase 3: Adolescence. He was reconstructed, periodically, to create the impression of continuous growth; had been throughout Phase 2: Youth; would continue with self-adjustments from Phase 4: Adulthood and onward.

The first person to express it in the most fitting terms is a boy slightly younger than he is, the term "slightly" becoming more relevant each day he remains activated. At thirteen years old (he had learned that listing out more specific measurements was bothersome to the humans around him), their difference in activation duration is relatively slight, but when he had been at three hundred fifty days of activation, he'd doubled the other's duration.

"What are you doing, spacing out?" the younger boy says, shifting his backpack in his lap. Aiba hadn't been "spacing out"; he had been doing complex calculations about their relative ages that required several extra seconds for his processor to digest.

"Sorry, Nino," Aiba says, using the younger boy's preferred moniker. "What were you saying?" Of course, Aiba has it stored in his memory, but he's found over the years that it's more convenient socially to ask for repetition than it is to sit still and find the data again.

Nino bumps Aiba's shoulder, and Aiba knocks into the man seated next to him, a male who would classify as "middle-aged" measuring one hundred seventy-three and twenty-four hundredths centimeters in height. The man turns his head to give Aiba an unfriendly glare -- one of the most common expressions Aiba had come into contact with during the duration of his activation -- and stands up to move to a different car of the train.

Next to him, Nino giggles, which in his case indicates either delight or embarrassment. Aiba finds it likely that this time it's both. "Stupid. I was saying, it's like you're rebuilt every couple of months, slightly taller and dumber than before."

Aiba doesn't think that he's gotten dumber; he's just been activated for longer, and has more data to analyze every time he has an encounter. "What a weird thing to say," Aiba responds gamely, pulling out a lopsided grin he had developed during his elementary school days. "Who's the dumb one here?"

Nino smirks -- with amusement or scorn, or possibly excitement -- and stands, walking toward the train doors. "My stop's next. You coming for ramen or not?"

.

The formulation of the group known as Arashi is as of yet undocumented territory for Aiba. As his mother figure and father figure are merely scientists (and Chinese restaurant owners on the side), the data they've compiled about five adolescents creating one idol group is literally non-existent.

It's for that reason that Aiba feels himself overheating on the large bed in Hawaii (a part of the United States of America, the state bird of which is a native goose; Nene, Hawaiian Goose). His processor is overrun with questions that the company president is telling them to be ready to answer, and meticulously worded answers to the aforementioned questions. Aiba latches onto one because concentrating on a singular process helps him cool down enough to function properly.

The end result, however, is that no matter what's asked, Aiba only has the capacity to talk about their plans to create a storm throughout the world.

.

Twenty-first year of the reign of the Heisei Emperor, ninth month, fifteenth day. September 15th, 2009. The group known as Arashi celebrates its tenth year of activation duration, ten years after their storm has started and refused to cease.

Aiba's memory is slipping with increased frequency -- stating it in such a way is inaccurate. His memory is all there, but accessing the necessary data is a process that's slowed greatly since his activation. Where it used to take him mere nanoseconds to call up data about whatever he'd need and make calculations while running multiple complex thought processes, during the most recent years, his functions were, for better or for worse, coming to be consistent with the processing speed of humans.

It's perhaps due to that processor deterioration that it comes out so suddenly and unexpectedly, but it's just as likely because Aiba's mother figure and father figure hadn't installed a mechanism to properly break down alcohol and Sho's just supplied so much of it.

"I'm a robot," Aiba says in a low voice, eyes squinted as he sweeps his glance across Sho's apartment, though somehow it doesn't help his visual range as much as he expects it to.

"We know," Nino sighs. Aiba can smell whiskey and boredom on his breath, even from one and something meters away. "You told us three years ago."

Aiba searches his memory and finds a murky scene at a hotel bar that seems familiar and relevant. Ah, so he did.

"And then you showed us how your birthmark is actually the latch," Jun mutters around the rim of his glass, his eyes glossed over, either from alcohol or spiritual possession. Or maybe they're color contact lenses. Dandelions turn a similar fluffy white in order to pollinate.

Aiba lays himself across the armrest of the end of the couch he's sitting on, dejected and increasingly muddled as mixed data slops across his mainframe, anything but what he needs to know. "You already knew, huh?" He catches Ohno's eye, and Ohno gives him a small smile. Aiba cools down. He likes those smiles because they're simple, plain and honest.

"It's okay, Aiba-chan," Ohno says meekly. "I forget things all the time."

Aiba nods, barely in control of his body as his head bobs down and back up, and he forces a smile because even without his mainframe he can tell Ohno was trying to help. The only difference is that Aiba's not supposed to forget.

.

The rest of the members had chipped in. Aiba looks at the donation box Ohno had placed on the table in front of him, picks it up with both hands unsure and both eyes on his leader. Aiba has data in him somewhere about donation boxes -- the people they're given to, the purposes they serve, the ways humans constantly work together to give to causes greater than themselves. But he's at a loss not only because he can't process what's happening but also because he can't understand why it's happening to him.

"Why?" he asks quietly, his eyes slipping across the dressing room to look at each of the members in turn. "I don't need money."

"You're getting slow, aren't you?" Sho says seriously, followed by a muttered comment from Nino that Aiba's always been slow, a comment Aiba now knows is nothing but affection. "You're going to be thirty. You've outlived most processors, but it wouldn't hurt to get an upgrade."

Aiba is confused suddenly, and he's so detached from his database that he feels like he's running on human emotions. Do they want him to upgrade to a better version? Is his current version not good enough? Hurt prickles at the corners of his eyes.

As if Jun can hear his gears spinning, he responds directly to Aiba's concerns. "Nothing's changing but the processor, you know. Your memory and personality and collected data will all be the same. You'll just be running a little faster instead of taking a long time to remember things."

"And maybe it'll help you pick up choreography, too," Nino says with a grin, teasing, definitively teasing.

Aiba waits for Ohno to say something, because it's times like these they should all take turns and have a pretty group speech ready for him -- it's what he's learned from all of the dramas he's watched over the years. Alternatively, on entertainment news shows, they would push Ohno to say something funny to wrap up their comments, and Aiba waits for either. But Ohno doesn't say a thing; just sits, slouched at his seventy-two degree angle in front of his bento.

That's appropriate, too, Aiba comes to realize as he traces through his memory -- and he really needs that upgrade, if it takes him this long to get there. Arashi have their own standards and traditions, and one of them is that their leader leads even if he has nothing to say.

Aiba takes a taxi to his parents' home in Chiba, donation box pressed between his legs. The lid of the box sits on the far seat, and a letter in the middle. _Happy birthday, Aiba-chan,_ it says, written in Ohno's lazy but beautiful handwriting. _Come back as soon as your upgrade is finished. We can't start this storm without you._


End file.
